Roger Scruton

He mentions metal in an essay called 'The Decline of Musical Culture'. He rejects metal for its aesthetics, including the 'anti-harmonic' power chord, then goes on to prove this 'ugly' music is also morally objectionable by quoting Nirvana lyrics.

However, this is an understandable slipup by an otherwise very interesting thinker. Like other cultural-conservatives, it's mostly common sense you'll hear him say. I suspect that in his writings, he constantly feels the need for abstract frameworks of 'logic' to subject his otherwise clear intuitions to, in order to make it count as 'philosophy'.

Nothing much to elaborate on, I am referring to this new breed of `alt-right` thinkers who have right-wing and anti-Enlightenment, anti-egalitarian views but their approach is not strictly the conservation of any particular tradition. They are almost all secular, and the ones that are not have other heterodox views like pereniallism. Nietzsche is a strong influence. Mencius Moldbug, Nick Land etc. Contrast with the Orthosphere.

Though in fairness Brett Stevens is closer to `old-school` conservatism than most of these.

Sorry shouldnt have just thrown the term out, I was under the impression you would be familiar, I mean catholic (and some other denominations) Christian writers. Larry Auster, Jim Kalb, Alan Roebuck and of course, http://orthosphere.org/

I'm not familiar with any of those people. The only contemporary Christian writer I've read is Peter Hitchens, whose blatant and blunt approach in the British media I am very entertained by; though there is a point where his beliefs stop short of where I'm willing to go, which is true for any Christian I've come across (innate populism/religious humanism). Though, he does support the monarchy in a meaningful fashion, which is very intriguing.

I'm not very fond of the terms "reactionary" or "conservative", since they imply that they arise only as a reverse approach to an existing stimulus. It assumes the designation of "progress" to have meaning.

Additionally, "conservative" in the mass consciousness has come to mean "identifying with the values of the American/French Revolution", which is actually the reverse of what we would prefer. (I recently had a discussion with a Marxist academic who stated that the "emancipation of women" was compatible with conservatism. I didn't know how to respond. I guess it appears that way if your view of history starts in the 18th century...this guy also thought Thatcher was a lower-case conservative...)In reality, the American "founding fathers" were "crowdists" and I have severe problems when Amerika.org praises that era of our history as if it was ideal...why Brett Stevens praises Reagan/Romney etc is another thing that I do not understand.

I agree with you that there should be terms to distinguish between populations, however I'm irritated that the left has hijacked all the terminology. I've started using the term "reality-based thinkers" in conversations to describe views such as Amerika.org when talking to people who think George Bush was a conservative. Catches them off guard, since they have no pre-built reaction to the term.

I like some of Scruton's work but this is pretty dumb. It implies that metal should use functional harmonies in the same way that classical music does, thereby imposing the rules of one style on another. This argument would also condemn pre-classical western music and pretty much any non-western music.